Back To The Past: Porsche Engineers To Build Foundation For All Of Volkswagen

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

In June, we reported about a catfight between Porsche and Audi. The bitching and eye-scratching was about who will design the kit for all future sports cars of the Volkswagen empire. The contenders: Audi and Porsche. The thinking was that the fight is just for show. And it was. If Automobilwoche [sub] has it straight, then Porsche will not just develop the mid-engined kit for all sportscars. Porsche will lead the engineering of the complete kit and kaboodle.

Currently, there are two families of erector kits which can be assembled into all kinds of cars at Volkswagen. They have Teutonic names like “Modularer Querbaukasten” (MQB) and “Modularer Längsbaukasten” (MLB). The MQB has the engine “quer,” or transverse (like in most Volkswagen, SEATs, Skodas etc.). The MLB has the engine “längs,” or longitudinal, like in the larger Audis, future Bentleys etc. The quer kit falls under the purview of Wolfsburg, the längs kit is under the guiding hand of Ingolstadt. Everybody thought, Porsche will develop an “MMB” (Modularer Mittelbaukasten) for Mittelmotor (mid-engined) cars, and everybody will be busy and happy.

According to Automobilwoche, there won’t be three kits, there will be one. It’s called MSB (Modularer Standardbaukasten), which is … see you have already figured it out without knowing a word of German. Porsche got the job to design a kit with the parts for anything in the Volkswagen realm.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Herb Herb on Aug 21, 2010

    Seems to make sense. Major components under the hood developed by Porsche. The other VW companies can concentrate on exterior & interior design plus marketing. Some engineering jobs will be lost, but the S&M side will make up for that.

    • Silvy_nonsense Silvy_nonsense on Aug 21, 2010

      "Major components under the hood developed by Porsche." That's not what the article is about. It discusses the backbone architecture of the vehicles which is independent of specific "under the hood" components. Power train engineering is a separate discipline and area of responsibility. "Some engineering jobs will be lost" How do you know this? I don't see anything in this article about job adds/losses and I don't have a subscription to Automobilwoche, so I can't read the source article. If you've read the source article and can substantiate your claim, please do so. Without knowing any specifics about how VAG plans to implement this strategy, its not appropriate to speculate about what, if anything, will happen to jobs. Based on this brief article, we have no idea whether employees will be physically shuffled around, if the employees will stay in place but get new leadership from Porsche or if the employees will stay in place and existing VW/Audi leadership in this area of expertise will be transferred to Porsche, if the employees will be transferred from the payroll of VW/Audi to Porsche, how VAG will manage the dialectic between what a "central overlord" will want to do vs. what the individual businesses believe they need, etc.

  • Ian Anderson Ian Anderson on Aug 21, 2010

    Forget the article I want that toy!

  • Ian Anderson Ian Anderson on Aug 21, 2010

    Forget the article I want that toy!

  • ChuckR ChuckR on Aug 22, 2010

    An Audi interior in a Porsche would be sweet. I've always liked the chestnut leather baseball-stitched interior that was offered on the TT. If only they could play nicely together.....

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